Skeleton Pirates, oh my!
by ladybugbirdie42
Summary: A tale of a certain skeleton pirate known as Skeleton-chan and his misadventures in a world of teenage tennis players.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is not meant to be taken seriously at all (just in case you couldn't tell).**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis. It belongs to Konomi.**

* * *

A tale of great infamy spread across the seas. A terrible pirate with dark, black holes where his eyes should be, and he was pale – whiter than a fresh, powdery, snowfall. He spread terror throughout the land. It was said that anyone who met this deadly man was guaranteed certain death.

Skeleton-chan travelled the seven seas on his beautiful ship the Capricorn. It was old, falling apart, and had suffered many battle scars over the years. Quite the beauty indeed. He was very close to his crew. Or at least he considered himself to be. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure if his crew shared the same opinion. They never talked to him or really tried to get along with him at all. He tried not to take it to heart, though; his crew never really did much of anything anyway. For the most part, they just laid still on the ground, occasionally shifting a bit when the seas were particularly turbulent. Skeleton-chan didn't really mind. As long as he had them there to keep him company, he didn't mind doing everything himself. After all, it was his job as the captain to make sure everything went smoothly and to protect his crew. That's what he thought, anyway. Besides, it wasn't as if he really needed any help. So far he'd handled everything just fine by himself.

Everything was going smoothly until one day, with a crack of thunder, sheets of rain suddenly came pouring down and bolts of lightning continuously lit the sky. He noticed a trespasser on his ship – a teenage boy. Taking in his appearance – in particular the uniform he wore – the skeleton pirate was suddenly reminded of a similar encounter he had had earlier. What was his name again? Ah, yes. Byoudouin. He was quite fond of Byoudouin. Although he certainly could've done without the bossiness. The teen actually had the nerve to declare himself Skeleton-chan's new boss! The nerve! Who did that teenager think he was? Nobody orders Skeleton-chan around.

But even worse than that was meeting Byoudouin's other underling: the space pirate. Ugh. Skeleton-chan most certainly could've done without the third member of their little pirate trio – the pirate of tennis, the skeleton pirate, and the space pirate. Honestly the only problem Skeleton-chan had with the space pirate was that he was far more infamous than him. His name struck terror in the hearts of all living creatures throughout the galaxy. As if that made him superior to Skeleton-chan whose name was only infamous throughout the Earth. How childish.

Other than that, he didn't particularly mind the arrangement. It was nice having friends who actually bothered responding, though he hated the thought that he was betraying his crew by enjoying the other pirates' company. However, he didn't really understand Byoudouin. Byoudouin was only the pirate of tennis. Shouldn't that make Skeleton-chan superior? As far as he was concerned, ruling the seas was superior to ruling the tennis courts. But apparently Byoudouin was the boss, and he didn't have any choice in the matter. All he really got from Byoudouin in terms of an explanation was something about each of them being from different dimensions and he has inter-dimensional tennis or whatever, which allowed him to access different dimensions like the ones the skeleton pirate and space pirate were from. Or something. Skeleton-chan still wasn't entirely sure what that was supposed to mean. All he got from it was Byoudouin's "the boss" and he wasn't supposed to question it and that the whole inter-dimensional tennis thing was probably the reason for the sudden appearance of some blue-haired adolescent on his ship.

In general Skeleton-chan considered himself to be a fairly decent person (well, skeleton). Okay, so he might've stabbed the boy through the heart for no apparent reason, but he was a pirate. And it was the boy's fault for being on his ship in the first place. Everyone knows that setting foot on a pirate ship is the same as forfeiting your life. You're as good as dead.

Besides, the boy seemed fine. Skeleton-chan was fairly sure that being stabbed through the heart usually killed most people, but the boy was still very much alive. However that works. Inter-dimensional tennis? Yeah, that sounds good. Blame it all on the tennis.

Unfortunately, this still didn't change the fact that the teen was on his ship. He was considering throwing him overboard because, if this kid could survive being stabbed, he wasn't sure he really wanted to fight him anymore. He was pretty sure that was even less fair than him being a skeleton and therefore technically already dead.

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) for him, he didn't have to take drastic measures to ensure the safety of his fearsome reputation, for the next thing he knew there was a swirling abyss of blackness in front of him. Except it was in the air instead of at the bottom of an endless cliff, so maybe it wasn't really an abyss. Whatever. It was cool. And it looked dangerous. Like a hole of pure blackness. Suspended in the air. He wanted one. Where could he find such a deadly weapon?

His pondering of this swirling thing before him was swiftly interrupted as the gale around him abruptly stopped and his world faded into darkness.

* * *

When Skeleton-chan woke up again, he had no idea where he was. And his precious ship was nowhere to be seen, he noted sadly. Clearly, the only reasonable course of action was to wander around and try to find some clue that would tell him where he was and what happened, so he did just that.

He wandered around until finding a room that looked like an infirmary. There he saw the blue-haired teen from earlier asleep on a bed and covered in bandages. Anxiously standing nearby were two other boys his age – one a blonde with glasses and the other a red-head. In Skeleton-chan's defense, he was fairly certain that it wasn't his fault. Last time he'd seen him, he was still quite alive and well.

He quickly reached the conclusion that he must be in a different universe. Tennis Universe? If that was the case, then Byoudouin would be here somewhere. Finding him would probably be a good idea. He could help him take over this universe. Then he'd surely be better than the space pirate; he'd be infamous throughout _two_ dimensions! Now to go establish himself as the ruler of this universe whom everyone should fear. Because if everyone's afraid of you, then you can get away with anything!

He set off again with a renewed vigor now that he had a clear goal in mind. He soon ran into someone new. "Vote Skeleton-chan for supreme dictator of the world!" he said, offering the young teen a winning smile, which, as you can imagine, looked nothing like a smile what with him being a skeleton and all.

The curly black-haired teen stared at him with a countenance of pure horror, all the colour quickly draining from his face. He swiftly turned and ran, screaming like a little girl, down the hall waving his arms frantically and yelling something about 1,2 . . . something or other. He promptly tripped and fell flat on his face.

Skeleton-chan watched him, satisfied. The teen was clearly afraid of him as he should be. Though part of him was a little bit disappointed. He didn't quite think he won the boy's vote. Darn.

Behind him he heard a faint click and saw another black-haired teen (this one with several piercings) holding up a rectangular device and snickering along with another teen whose dirty blond hair reminded him of a mushroom. They didn't seem to notice him.

"There's another one for the blog," the black-haired one said, sounding quite satisfied. "Akaya freaks out over everything."

"Hey, where do you think Kaidou went?" the blonde asked.

"He probably ran off the second we started talking about the training camp being haunted. I think he made up some lame excuse about practice or something like that. At least we got Akaya to come along."

"Hello. Do you think you could help me? I'm trying to become the supreme ruler of this dimension," Skeleton-chan interrupted.

At first the boys didn't move. They just stood there looking at the skeleton pirate, only now noticing his presence. Then:

"You can talk?! And move?! But you're a skeleton! How is that possible?!" from the mushroom.

Skeleton-chan just sort of shrugged. "I come from a different dimension?" he offered. It wasn't really much of an explanation, but he had never thought himself to be odd before. After all, as far as he could remember, he had been like this. He, of course, thought he was perfectly normal. All his other crew members were just like him, albeit much lazier. And they weren't exactly brilliant conversationalists, but he had figured that that was just how they were.

"I told you!" the mushroom shouted triumphantly to the other boy, who just kind of gave him this look. Skeleton-chan quickly departed before the mushroom could bombard him with questions.

* * *

Eventually, Skeleton-chan managed to find Byoudouin's room without running into any more trouble.

"Byoudouin. _Byoudouin._ Let's go conquer the world together."

Byoudouin groaned and threw a pillow at him. Yes, _Byoudouin _threw a pillow at Skeleton-chan.

"Watch it. You could take off someone's head like that," Skeleton-chan whined. He was very fond of having his head attached to the rest of his body. And it was true. You could kill someone with one of those pillows. What did they fill them with? Bricks?

Whatever. Skeleton-chan didn't really want to rule the world anyway. Terrorize everyone in the world was a much more accurate statement. Ruling required work and creating laws and dealing with people who didn't follow the rules when all Skeleton-chan wanted to do in the first place was get away with breaking all the rules by being so feared worldwide that everyone was too afraid to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. No. Being supreme dictator of the world was too much work. Way more work than he wanted to deal with.

Skeleton-chan left the room since Byoudouin was being a jerk and he didn't have to put up with that sort of thing. It wasn't long before he ran into yet another teen. Why were there so many teens around anyway? Wasn't it past their bedtime or something?

This time it was a dark-haired boy with a green bandana. He wore the same terrified expression as the seaweed-haired boy from earlier. Yes! That was how it was supposed to be! Everyone was supposed to fear him and run away in terror and not dare challenge him, not hit him with a barrage of questions and not look even the slightest bit afraid like the two boys from earlier. There must be something terribly wrong with those two. He had never met anyone who wasn't scared of him. Well, except Byoudouin. And the space pirate. How was he supposed to terrorize the world if there were people like that?

Unfortunately, in the middle of his thoughts, the boy with the bandana swung at him with his tennis racket and Skeleton-chan collapsed into a pile of disconnected bones. No! This wasn't how it was supposed to be!

Then the boy promptly ran off screaming, so at least there was that.

"Hey! Come back here and put me back together!" Skeleton-chan could not believe he was actually telling someone to stop running away from him in terror. The boy didn't stop; he probably hadn't even heard Skeleton-chan over the sound of his screaming.

* * *

Skeleton-chan wasn't sure how long he stayed like that before more teenagers stumbled upon the pile of bones that used to be a proud skeleton pirate. This time Skeleton-chan was quite appreciative about the abundance of teenagers throughout the camp.

The same curly-haired boy from earlier was back – this time with an exasperated-looking teen in a torn up black cap and a blue-haired boy with a green headband.

"See there it is! The skeleton from earlier," Akaya cried, pointing at Skeleton-chan from where he hid behind the capped teen's back.

The capped teen pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "Akaya, I've already told you many times that I don't have time for your foolish nonsense."

"Do you think you could spare the time to put me back together?" Skeleton-chan inquired as politely as he could even though he was slightly offended by the teens. After all, he wasn't exactly in a position where he could demand anything of them without them laughing him off and walking away. He didn't want to be left a pile of bones forever.

The capped teen just stared at him, too shocked to move.

"Please?" Skeleton-chan tried.

The capped boy and the seaweed-haired one both took off down the hall. Skeleton-chan wondered if maybe being feared by everyone was such a good thing after all.

The blue-haired teen frowned in the general direction his companions had raced off in before sighing and taking out a sack. (Why Yukimura had a sack with him in the first place isn't important.)

"Hey!" Skeleton-chan protested as the teen began putting his bones into the sack. He picked up the pirate's skull last and stared at him calmly as if he dealt with talking skeletons every day.

"Do you have any last requests before I put you in the dumpster?" he asked.

"What?!" Skeleton-chan cried. "That hardly seems fair. All I want is to go back to my ship! I'm done with your crazy world!"

"Well, seeing as how your ship is apparently in another dimension, there's nothing I can do to help you, is there?" he said sweetly, clearly not caring about the skeleton's predicament at all. In fact, he seemed to be amused by Skeleton-chan's problem.

"Wait! Byoudouin knows about dimensions and stuff! Talk to him first! I don't want to be a pile of bones in a dumpster forever!" Skeleton-chan wished he had thought to ask Byoudouin if he could send him back to his own universe when he had gone to his room earlier. Then none of this would've happened.

Skeleton-chan had never broken down like this in his life, and he had fought off all kinds of people. Yet one night in this universe had left him a pile of bones forced to beg teenagers for help. Truly a terrifying world. He was beginning to see why Byoudouin was the boss.

Yukimura didn't reply. He simply stuffed Skeleton-chan's head into the sack. Skeleton-chan couldn't see where they were going. He sincerely hoped it wasn't towards a dumpster.

After a short walk that felt like eternity for poor Skeleton-chan who had literally been left in the dark – and to make it worse, left in the dark in a sack full of his own bones which were shuffling around and hitting each other as the teenager carried him – he heard Yukimura order Byoudouin to send him back to his own dimension in this sugary sweet voice that sent shivers down Skelton-chan's spine, which is a very odd experience when your spine is detached from the rest of your body. The last thing Skeleton-chan remembered was thinking once again that the blue-haired teen was very strange indeed. And scary. Very scary.

* * *

Skeleton-chan awoke on the deck of his ship to the bright rays of the sun. He sat up groaning. He felt awful. He glanced down at himself. Yes! Whole again! Home sweet boat. He was never leaving this dimension ever again. Ever.

Whistling (well, trying to whistle, but, as you can imagine, that worked out real well), Skeleton-chan went off to go steer the boat. He spun the wheel in all directions, and it promptly broke off. He dropped it to the ground and set off to find some way to fix it. Today was going to be a great day! Yes. A very wonderful day indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**A\N: Roe2 requested a sequel, so here it is.**

**Roe2, it's probably not quite what you expected, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.**

* * *

Skeleton-chan hummed happily to himself, spinning the wheel of his beautiful ship without a care in the world. Life had been great for him since returning from that dreadful Tennis Universe. So far he had looted 42 ships! His own ship was loaded with stolen treasure, and he even had a lovely new sofa for his cabin.

Things were going well enough that he had almost forgotten that one awful night he had spent trapped in another universe, alone, in a camp full of middle schoolers, some of whom didn't even fear him in the least! The nerve! Didn't they know who he was?!

Unfortunately, there were still a few awful nights where unwelcome thoughts of his short stay crept into his mind and refused to leave much like that blue-haired teen had done when he trespassed on Skeleton-chan's ship that day so long ago (okay, like a week) that had started it all. But he took comfort in knowing that nothing like that could ever, _ever_ happen again.

He should've realized that things were about to go horribly, horribly wrong for him when his mast suddenly snapped and fell over and the sky grew ominously dark overhead, but being his optimistic, oblivious self, he of course wrote it off as nothing. That is, until the sky suddenly erupted into a storm and a curtain of fog so thick that he couldn't see through it spread over his ship. Suddenly there was a snap and the force of an impact. The overwhelming blackness that was becoming much too familiar quickly swallowed Skeleton-chan and then his ship, everything he owned and loved, was gone once again.

* * *

Skeleton-chan didn't even need to look to know where he was. He didn't even want to look, but he did. The familiar hallway that had burned itself into the infamous pirate's eyes (or burned them away) lay before him.

"NOOOOOO!" he screamed.

_Alright, calm down, _he told himself, not really calming down at all. _All I have to do is go find Byoudouin, and he'll fix everything. Yes. Go find Byoudouin. He knows what to do. I can leave before anyone even knows I'm here._

He forced himself to get up and go find Byoudouin. Left? Sure. That was where his room was, right? He'd start there.

He opened the door.

_Pleaes be here._

He wasn't. Skeleton-chan barely managed to suppress the urge to dramatically yell "no" while shaking his fist at the sky again. Although a few tears did escape the black holes that were his eyes (don't ask how it works; nobody knows), not that the fearsome pirate would ever admit it. He hadn't even told his dear crew about what had happened on his last trip to Tennis Universe. Strangely, they hadn't seemed to notice he had even been gone, or if they did, they never said anything about it. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or hurt.

Disappointedly, he turned away from the door and wandered down the halls. Now what? Where else could Byoudouin possibly be?

Slowly he proceeded down the hall, a depressed air about him. There weren't many people about, which surprised him; it was day this time. Were people nocturnal here? He thought about it. Maybe. He couldn't remember ever seeing Byoudouin when it wasn't dark. Except he was sleeping last time Skeleton-chan came. A late riser?

Unfortunately, his relief at the lack of presence of terrifying teenage buys was short-lived, for he suddenly tripped, and when he looked behind him to see what the cause was, he saw a small blonde boy lying on the ground. He stared in confusion for a second before it quickly changed to horror. Was he dead? There was no way he could be asleep. Who fell asleep in the middle of the hall? It had to be a corpse.

The boy mumbled something and shuffled a bit in his sleep. Oh, so he wasn't dead. That was good. Wait. No, it wasn't.

Skeleton-chan slowly turned around, intending to leave before the small teen woke up and saw him. He wasn't taking any chances this time around.

A yawn came from behind him, and he immediately froze, hearing the boy sit up. The blonde gasped, and before Skeleton-chan could even attempt to run away, he found the teen attached to his arm. He looked down at the boy's beaming face. Why was everyone in this world so insane?

"Hi, Mr. Skeleton!" he said, smiling so brightly that it was almost blinding. Good thing Skeleton-chan didn't have any eyes.

"Um, could you let go of me?" he asked uncomfortably. The boy seemed harmless enough, but Skeleton-chan didn't trust any inhabitant of this universe. Especially one who just latched onto his arm like he saw skeleton pirates walking around every day.

Either the boy didn't hear him (which Skeleton-chan doubted) or he ignored him in favor of excitedly pulling him down the hall, rambling so quickly that Skeleton-chan could only half-understand what he was saying. Somewhere in there he thought he heard something about tennis. He hoped not.

"Hey! Atobe!" the boy called, waving his free arm at another teen who had just exited one of the training rooms.

"Jirou, what did I tell you about running off by yourself?" Atobe asked as the blonde reached him, Skeleton-chan in tow.

"Look,look! I found the skeleton that Hiyo-C was talking about!"

"So, I see," he replied, not the least bit fazed. After all, he had seen much stranger things during tennis matches. Not to mention the fact that he could see any given person's skeleton with his insight.

"Can I have a match against him? Pleaaase." He looked at him with puppy-dog eyes.

"I don't see why not," Atobe said finally, giving his assent.

"Wait. What?!" Skeleton-chan exclaimed. He had to get out of there. Now.

* * *

"I don't actually know how to play tennis," Skeleton-chan admitted to Atobe as he stood on his side of the court, staring at the foreign object in his hands.

"Just humor him," he said, glancing with an exasperated sigh at the excited blonde on the other side of the court. Seeing Skeleton-chan's look of complete and utter confusion and helplessness, Atobe pointed to the object in his hand and explained. "All you have to do is use your racket to hit the ball over the net. If it's within the lines, you get a point. I'll keep score."

Skeleton-chan stared at the racket, still very uncomfortable with this situation. But then, suddenly an idea dawned on him. If power in this world was determined by your skills in tennis, then all he had to do was be the best player, and then he'd be the ruler of this world and therefore the most powerful pirate! How hard could tennis be?

"Alright. I'm ready," he said, preparing to take his position on the court. However, before he could, a boy wearing a blue cap approached them.

"Are you insane, Atobe?! You're really letting Jirou do this?" he demanded.

"It'll be fine," said Atobe, waving it off. "Aren't you being a little too overprotective?"

Ignoring this last comment, the capped boy turned to Skeleton-chan and said, low and threatening, "If you hurt Jirou, I will smash every bone in your body into a thousand pieces."

Skeleton-chan quickly backed away from the boy, raising his hands in a sign of harmlessness. "I'm not going to hurt him. Promise."

Usually, he would've laughed off a threat like that, but the memory of being nothing more than a pile of disconnected bones was still fresh in his mind. He had no doubt that the teen would make good on his threat.

And so, his resolve slightly wavering, the infamous pirate captain stepped onto the tennis courts.

Jirou got to serve first because Skeleton-chan still had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

Soon the stands were filled by all the middle schoolers (because they have nothing better to do with their lives). Poor Skeleton-chan didn't even get a single point. Actual rallies were a rarity in the match. He didn't think there was even a single person in the crowd cheering for him – not that anyone had ever actually cheered for him in the first place. Even so, he put up a good fight for a skeleton pirate who had never picked up a racket before ( so not really much of a fight, as you can imagine).

He showed off his superior grace by tripping and falling at least ten times throughout the short match.

At the end of the match, he just lied down and died. Metaphorically, of course. Jirou still wore the same bright smile, barely showing any signs of exhaustion, while Skeleton-chan lied on the ground, gasping for breath.

"I'm sorry! I won't try to take over your universe ever again! I just wanna go home!" he cried.

"What was that about taking over our world?!" an enraged voice demanded.

"Don't be mean, C-C-do," Jirou said, attempting to help Skeleton-chan up. "I made him play a match with me, so it's only fair that we help him get home."

* * *

Skeleton-chan woke up, breathing a sigh of relief. It was good to be home, back in his own uni-. Wait. This wasn't his ship.

He ran to the nearest window and stared out at the black expanse dotted with glittering stars. Space.

"NOOOOOO!"


End file.
